The primary goal of the Coordinating Center (CC) for the State and Community Tobacco Control Policy and Media Research initiative is to provide support to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and its funded projects as they shape national priorities and fill important gaps in the evidence and practice base of tobacco control and ultimately reduce the health and economic burden of tobacco in the United States and elsewhere. The CC will accomplish this goal by fostering productive collaboration and communication among the research projects (RPs), NCI, and the broader public health community. The CC will provide comprehensive project coordination;facilitate collaborations with NCI and the individual sites to support funded RPs and identify and implement complementary cross-site RPs;offer state-of-the-science analytic, statistical, and data management support;utilize methods and mechanisms that will facilitate the translation of study findings and accelerate the implementation of new tobacco control strategies;and implement measures and methods to evaluate the success of individual RPs and the initiative as a whole. To encourage communication and collaboration, the CC will provide logistical support for all meetings and develop a project Web portal. The project Web portal will provide a secure, centralized collaboration space to store the initiative's history and knowledge and unite the human interactions and connections of the group. The Web portal will also be used to disseminate information about the initiative, individual RPs, research findings, news and press releases, and publicly available data and publications. The CC will foster productive research collaboration by pairing each RP with teams that have tobacco control expertise that aligns with the aims of the RPs, facilitating the use of common methods and measures, and making unique data resources available to NCI and individual sites. In addition, the CC will convene a working group of "thought and practice leaders" in tobacco control who will represent the perspective of the broader tobacco control communities, including state tobacco control programs, advocacy organizations, and minority networks. This working group will participate from the outset of this initiative to help ensure that the research conducted meets the needs of practitioners and fills the most important gaps in research. This group can also assist with the translation and dissemination of findings to diverse audiences. The CC will use traditional dissemination formats and channels, such as newsletters disseminated through mail and e-mail, and social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) to ensure broad dissemination of findings with the goal of quickly influencing tobacco control practice.